A Healthy Coliban Catchment focuses on the health of the Coliban River and its tributaries upstream of Malmsbury Reservoir.

This area is home to significant numbers of threatened plants and animals and is a key social, cultural and economic asset for the region. 

It supplies the raw drinking water for more than 130,000 people, including the towns of Bendigo, Trentham, Tylden, Kyneton and Castlemaine, and is a source of water for the region’s rural customers. 

The waterways are spiritually and culturally significant to the Dja Dja Wurrung people, as a source of tools, native plants, medicines and food.

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About the community 

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The Upper Coliban catchment provides raw water for drinking water purposes for more than 130,000 people as well as having a range of additional environmental, social, cultural and economic values. 

The catchment faces known threats from existing and future developments, uncontrolled livestock, access to waterways and riparian areas and from climate change. 

Without a long-term vision and action plan, the catchment will degrade, meaning Coliban Water will not be able to maintain its service obligations cost-effectively and communities will experience lower rural environment liveability values.

Over 2015-16, in response to the threats facing the catchment, Coliban Water and the North Central CMA, with active participation of other stakeholders (landholders, local Landcare groups, local and Victorian government agencies and Goulburn Murray Water), undertook a comprehensive analysis of the benefits and costs of protecting and enhancing the Upper Coliban catchment. 

As a result an Integrated Catchment Management Plan was developed to enable the provision of a safe and secure water supply for communities in central and northern Victoria along with enhanced river, biodiversity and catchment health outcomes.

The Plan has a 20-year horizon and has been developed around three specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound goals which address future development pressures, waterway protection and habitat connectivity goals.  

READ THE PLAN HERE 

The Plan has been developed for implementation over 20 years. It's estimated to cost $10.81 million over the first 10 years of implementation and, thereafter $0.24-0.46 million/year to maintain the benefits. 

Based on available information, results show that a benefits costs ratio of at least $1.81 per dollar spent can be achieved. The benefits could be significantly higher if avoided water treatment plant upgrade costs were included.

The Plan involves a range of on-ground actions (stock exclusion from waterways, riparian regeneration and revegetation, willow removal) and additional municipal planning scheme amendments through development of Environmental Significance Overlays to protect raw  water supplies. 

It also proposes supporting community education, extension and compliance activities. 

The Plan is a model for how organisations and communities can work together to manage precious natural resources in the face of current and future development pressures.
 

Story: Taking care of the Coliban 

The Upper Coliban catchment is one of the most important catchments in north central Victoria.

And that's why we have spent the past three years working with local communities, contractors, Traditional Owners, landholders, councils, and other agencies protecting it.

So far, we have engaged with more than 250 people in the past three years on work to improve the catchment. 

We have engaged local contractors and Traditional Owners to install 30 kilometres of fencing, control 200 hectares of weeds, and revegetate 66 hectares of land next to waterways with indigenous plants.

We have installed 62 off-stream watering points, which provide alternative water sources to prevent livestock from degrading the water quality and river banks.

And we've only just begun. A Healthy Coliban Catchment is a 20-year plan. We're in it for the long haul.

COLIBAN RIVER HEALTH SNAPSHOT